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next day from the place, proved to be fact. Carthagena is a small sea-port town in Murcia; but has so good an harbour, that when the famous Admiral Doria was asked, which were the three best havens in the Mediterranean, he readily returned, June, July, and Carthagena.

Upon the surrender of this place, a detachment of foot was sent by the governor, with some dragoons, to Elsha; but it being a place of very little strength, they were soon made prisoners of war.

The siege of Carthagena being over, the Lord Galway returned to his camp; and the Lord Duncannon dying in Alicant, the first guns that were fired from Gorge's battery, were the minute-guns for his funeral. His regiment had been given to the Lord Montandre, who lost it before he had pos session, by an action as odd as it was scandalous.

That regiment had received orders to march to the Lord Galway's camp, under the command of their Lieutenant-Colonel

Bateman, a person before reputed a good officer, though his conduct here gave people, not invidious, too much reason to call it in question. On his march, he was so very careless and negligent, (though he knew himself in a country surrounded with enemies, and that he was to march through a wood, where they every day made their appearance in great numbers,) that his soldiers marched with their muskets slung at their backs, and went one after another, (as necessity had forced us to do in Scotland,) himself at the head of them, in his chaise, riding a considerable way before.

It happened there was a captain, with threescore dragoons, detached from the Duke of Berwick's army, with a design to intercept some cash that was ordered to be sent to Lord Galway's army from Alicant. This detachment, missing of that intended prize, was returning very disconsolately, re infecta; when their captain, observing that careless and disorderly march of the English, resolved, boldly enough, to

attack them in the wood. To that purpose he secreted his little party behind a great barn; and so soon as they were half passed by, he falls upon them in the centre with his dragoons, cutting and slashing at such a violent rate, that he soon dispersed the whole regiment, leaving many dead and wounded upon the spot. The three colours were taken; and the gallant LieutenantColonel taken out of his chaise, and carried away prisoner with many others; only one officer, who was an ensign, and so bold as to do his duty, was killed.

The Lieutenant who commanded the grenadiers, received the alarm time enough to draw his men into a house in their way; where he bravely defended himself for a long time; but, being killed, the rest immediately surrendered. The account of this action I had from the commander of the enemy's party himself, some time after, while I was a prisoner. And Captain Mahoni, who was present when the news was brought, that a few Spanish dragoons had

defeated an English regiment, which was this under Bateman, protested to me, that the Duke of Berwick turned pale at the relation; and when they offered to bring the colours before him, he would not so much as see them. A little before the Duke went to supper, Bateman himself was brought to him; but the Duke turned away from him without further notice, than coldly say

any

made a

ing, "that he thought he was very strangely taken." The wags of the army thorough jest of him, and said his military conduct was of a piece with his economy, having, two days before his march, sent his young handsome wife into England, under the guardianship of the young chaplain of the regiment.

April 15. In the year 1707, being Easter Monday, we had in the morning a flying report in Alicant, that there had been the day before a battle at Almanza, between the army under the command of the Duke of Berwick, and that of the English, under Lord Galway, in which the latter had suf

Battle of
Almanza.

fered an entire defeat. We at first gave no great credit to it; but, alas, we were too soon woefully convinced of the truth of it, by numbers that came flying to us from the conquering enemy. Then indeed we were satisfied of truths, too difficult before to be credited. But as I was not present in that calamitous battle, I shall relate it, as I received it from an officer then in the Duke's army.

purpose,

he

To bring the Lord Galway to a battle, in a place most commodious for his the Duke made use of this stratagem: ordered two Irishmen, both officers, to make their way over to the enemy as deserters; putting this story in their mouths, that the Duke of Orleans was in full march to join the Duke of Berwick with twelve thousand men; that this would be done in two days, and that then they would find out the Lord Galway, and force him to fight, wherever they found him.

Lord Galway, who at this time lay before Villena, receiving this intelligence from

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